Remembering a Mother Brought Into the Spotlight by Tragedy

July 5, 2006 — -- Nearly 10 years ago, 6-year-old JonBenet Ramsey became a national obsession.

Her bound, strangled body was found in the basement of her Colorado home on the day after Christmas.

Last month, another tragedy struck the Ramsey family when Patsy Ramsey, JonBenet's mother, died at the age of 49 after a long battle with ovarian cancer.

She was buried next to her daughter in an Atlanta cemetery.

The family's attorney, Lin Wood, had been by Patsy and husband John Ramsey's side since 1999. He said the relationship was both personal and professional for him.

"I saw Patsy a couple of weeks before her death," he said to ABC News. "I had breakfast with her and John. She was tired. She was weak. She was frail. John talked at that time about options for treatment, but I had a real sense Patsy knew that after 13 years, she was going to lose the battle that she fought against the vicious disease of ovarian cancer."

"When I put her in the car and left that morning she looked over at me -- because we had been talking about the investigation -- and she said, 'Tell them to hurry up and find that guy.' Because, as Patsy would say, her words, 'I'm about to conk out.'"

The physical evidence in JonBenet's case baffled police.

There was a ransom note with handwriting yet to be matched to anyone; an open window in the basement where an intruder may have entered; and DNA from an unknown male on JonBenet's underwear.

This case is still not close to being solved.

"The mystery lives on because it is a classic whodunit," said Charlie Brennan, a reporter at The Rocky Mountain News.

"There really has been no outward sign that this case has been getting a lot of active investigation of late. … The DA will tell you there is, but from the outside there is very little evidence of that."

From the beginning, police focused their investigation on JonBenet's parents who maintained they had nothing to do with her killing.

"Let me assure you, I did not kill JonBenet," Patsy said when the investigation began. "I loved that child with the whole of my heart and soul."